St. Joseph, West St. Paul began with ‘Sloppy Joe’s’

Before sacred hymns filled what became the first church of St. Joseph in West St. Paul in 1943, the building had served as a tavern known for live country western music.

Parishioners purchased Sloppy Joe’s Tavern, a popular West St. Paul bar on Charlton Street, and renovated it for its worship space. That building served their congregation for six years, until the parish built a school a half-mile from its current site on Seminole Avenue, and moved worship there.

In the parish’s first years in that former tavern, its first pastor, Msgr. James Foran, nurtured the faith of his fledgling congregation. It’s unclear why the parish chose to renovate a tavern for its first church, but parishioner Dorothy Miels, who once worked as Msgr. Foran’s secretary, said she wouldn’t be surprised if the tavern’s name played a role in Archbishop John Gregory Murray’s decision to name it “St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church,” the parish’s formal name.

Almost 80 years later, the parish now consists of 1,800 households, said Father Michael Creagan, its pastor since 2008.

After Archbishop Murray asked that the parish be formed in 1942, parishioners first met for Mass at a local junior high school. The tavern renovations were completed before Easter 1943.

“Imagine the challenges of remodeling during World War II, when many items were rationed,” Father Creagan said.

Miels, who turns 100 in November, didn’t start attending St. Joseph until after the Mass and other celebrations were moved into the parish’s school building near the current church in 1949, but she remembers going to Sloppy Joe’s Tavern for music.

She also remembers working at a dining hall the parish rented at the Minnesota State Fair during the 1950s and 1960s, selling meals to pay down parish debt.

Parishioners gathered for Mass in the parish school’s lower level from 1949 until the present church was built in 1988, following a growth spurt during the 1970s and 1980s. However, items from the original “tavern church” remain: a St. Joseph statue, a tabernacle and an image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Father Creagan said.

There are numerous images of the parish’s patron saint in the church and school, including large wood panels of St. Joseph’s life in the main church, and a stained-glass window of the saint with Jesus. “It helps parishioners be more conscious of him,” Father Creagan said.

The parish usually honors St. Joseph by praying a 30-day novena before his March 19 feast day and holding other events. The parish decided not to hold the events this year because of the pandemic, Father Creagan said.

During the Church’s worldwide Year of St. Joseph, the parish has been remembering the saint’s joys and sorrows during the seven Sundays leading up to his feast day with prayer and videos. Many parishioners also participated in the parish’s consecration to St. Joseph last fall, with 500 copies sold through the parish of Father Donald Calloway’s book, “Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father,” Father Creagan said.

The parish also was the first site March 2 of 10 talks by 10 theologians at 10 sites in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on 10 wonders of St. Joseph to help mark the Year of St. Joseph. Father Tom Margevicius, the archdiocese’s director of worship, presented St. Joseph as the “Delight of Saints.”

Father Creagan said he is grateful the parish is named for St. Joseph. “We will soon celebrate 30 years of perpetual eucharistic adoration,” he said. “St. Joseph shows us how to be quiet in the presence of Jesus.”

Because of COVID-19, Miels hasn’t been able to attend Mass or pray at her parish during the past year, but she considers her parish like family.

“It’s a church that holds people together, and I think that’s so important,” Miels said. “It’s a family church and it still is because so many times people have brought Communion to me, and everybody who brings Communion makes me feel like I belong to them.”